Wednesday, December 31, 2008

In this photo, reviewed by US military officials, a detainee, name and facial identification not permitted, is transported by Navy personnel into a building within the grounds of the maximum security prison at Camp Delta 2 & 3, at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, REUTERS/Brennan Linsley/Pool

The German newspaper Der Spiegel interviewed an Obama advisor about what is likely to happen to the people currently locked up at Guantanamo.

Bruce Riedel is a Brookings Institution guy, a CIA veteran, and an advisor since April 2007 on South Asia and terrorism. He called the prison "a very costly mistake" and reiterated the new administration's intent to close it down.

But, asked about efforts to persuade European countries to take custody of some the detainees, he revealed more about what kind of "mistake" he, and presumably the new administration, considers the prison to have been. Among the prisoners are several with Chinese nationality who cannot be returned to China because the US believes they would be abused. He hopes a European country will take them -- but he issues a warning as well.

SPIEGEL: Are you thinking of any particular group that Europe could accept?

Riedel: The Chinese prisoners would be particularly suitable. They cannot go back to China, and they are not as serious a threat as others -- for example, the Yemenis.

SPIEGEL: Do you really consider the Chinese inmates at all dangerous?

Riedel:No matter how dangerous these people were when they came to Guantanamo, after six or seven years in prison, they have a very serious motive for revenge. ... It is a very difficult business finding a place for those people. In the end, even the Bush administration thought along those lines. But we have some very dangerous people here, made more dangerous by six years in prison. We cannot simply let them go, but it gets more and more difficult to legally hold them. ... [Emphasis added.]

Our rulers' gulag has made monsters, possibly in reality, certainly in the nightmares of officialdom.

What's this blog about?

My musings on current events, current projects, current anxieties and current delights.

I started this under the Bush regime when any grain of sand thrown into the gears of the over-reaching imperial state seemed worthwhile.

I have worked to elect more and better Democrats -- and to hammer the shit out of them once we get them in office so they do the things their constituents want and need. It's a big job.

I have endured the dashed potential for a more transformational regime under Obama. The man has made himself an accomplice in the imperial crimes of his predecessor as well as committing his own. He has also almost certainly been the most progressive president most of us will live to see. I fear we'll look back on his years in office with mild gratitude for a respite from national leadership that was habitually stupid and vicious, as well as wrong.

Visitors here will find a lot of commentary on books I'm reading. I am very intentionally reading intensively offline these days. When it feels hard to find direction, it's time to learn something new.

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About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. I am currently an independent consultant to organizations seeking "help when you have to make a fight."